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Topic: Facebook when off work ill (Read 6936 times)

Add me to the camp of not understanding the issue. I do get that spending a significant time online while home sick can be misconstrued as faking the illness, but not all illnesses are created equal. If, for example, I have a severe cold, I may not be up to going to work and spending time at meetings, walking around, dealing with customers, etc. But can be perfectly fine laying in bed or on the couch and can check email, post on facebook, watch tv, etc.

I rarely call in sick and when I do, it's because I'm really sick. Even in those cases, I'm usually willing to answer email and/or take a phone call (if I'm awake), so I don't see anything wrong with posting on FB either. I just don't think there's a set rule of what activities can and cannot be done while home sick...at least not when talking about etiquette. And where some things are obvious (like riding roller coasters, going skiing, etc), others (pretty much anything done at home) are not.

I think it's an unreasonable expectation to stay off FB if you're taking a sick day. You aren't always required to tell your boss why you have taken a sick day. It could be a cold, it could be a sprained ankle. It could be that your kid is sick and you need to stay home and care for them. My back might be out. Being on FB could take my mind off the pain, or be a way to get in touch with friends who can help out while I'm out of commission.

Also, there ARE days when I take a sick day and I'm not sick physically. Sometimes it's a mental health day. And I will spend it on FB or reading or whatever.

I would be really annoyed at anyone who applied their own set of moral conduct on me for what I chose to do on my sick day. Should I not do laundry on a sick day? Not walk the dog? Sorry, OP but I think this rule might seem logical to you but it makes no sense to me and is quite presumptuous.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being on FB when you're sick. As others have said, it's a non taxing way to pass the time. Some people prefer to curl up in front of the TV and watch What Not to Wear all day, and some people prefer to curl up with their laptop and read eHell and post on FB.

I do think it's wise, however, to refrain from posting things like "Called in sick due to my hangover" or "It's a gorgeous summer day, I'm "sick" and headed to Atlantic City!". Those might qualify you for professional Darwinism, especially if you have current coworkers as friends on FB.

Using Facebook requires 2 minutes of attention span. I can't really get anything productive in 2 minutes. I can't even read a book when I am sick, sometimes, since I can't concentrate for more than those 2 minutes.

At my current job, we don't have "sick days" per se, we have Personal Time Off, which we can use for anything. I've spent a lot of PTO this year so far helping my sister with her kid because she doesn't have the PTO in her job and needs someone to watch her. I could spend it and go to a convention if I wanted. Or when I'm sick, or to go on vacation, or anything else.

If your company doesn't offer PTO and you actually take sick days, I still don't see the problem with being on FB. Unless your job is as easy as the mindlessness that FB offers (and in which case, is your company hiring?), there isn't an issue in my mind with light entertainment.

If you facebooked that you went and got a haircut, eating lunch at your favorite restaurant etc etc. Then yeah no that isn't a good thing.

But if you are home sick, why the heck not? I think maybe you are thinking of when you were a kid and parents would often say, "No tv or computer if you are going to miss school." Kind of a way to make sure the kid is really sick if there are no visible signs ie high temp. But an adult is perfectly capable of knowing when you are too sick to work.

No it's not just you. I avoid Facebook entirely when I'm off work sick. I've friended a lot of co-workers and it just feels very off to me to be messing around on Facebook while they're at work. If I'm out on a vacation day, I post whenever I want. The difference to me is that in the case of illness I'm supposed to be at work but am not, even though it's for a legitimate reason. If I'm on vacation, I'm not supposed to be at work.

This is part of why I refuse to friend coworkers on FB. Besides, Facebook is where I go to be silly/snarky with my friends, and while my coworkers are nice people, they're not my friends, they're my coworkers.

I don't think it's wrong to be on Facebook if you're home sick, though. Sometimes posting or reading silly stuff is a great distraction from feeling ill, if I don't have a vicious headache that makes looking at the screen painful.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with being on FB while home sick. For me personally, it depends a lot on the kind of sick I am. If I have a stomach flu and am curled up on the bathroom floor all day, obviously I'm not going to be posting. If I'm the kind of sick where I want to do nothing but sleep, then I might post once or twice in a lull but otherwise not. But I've had back problems over the years and spent some sick days where I could barely move off the couch long enough to go to the bathroom and take more pain medicine, yet I was mentally totally alert and physically fine as long as I wasn't moving. So I'd spend a lot of time surfing the web from my laptop, as well as watching TV and reading. It was pretty much all I could do!

Obviously, you should be careful what you post. Being "home sick" and posting about going to the movies or the amusement park is dumb.

My mother used to use this reasoning on me when I wanted to stay home sick from school: "If you're sick enough to stay home, you're sick enough to stay in bed and not watch TV or read". It was her way of ascertaining whether I was genuinely sick or just trying to pull a fast one to get out of going to school. But as adults, this surely doesn't apply.

Either way, I don't see how it's rude to anyone?

Mine too. I still remember my sr. year in HS i came down with a nasty something or other. Fever, chills, coughing, sore throat, so bad I couldn't even lift my head off the pillow without the room spinning. Yet my mother still felt the need to tell me (at age 18) that I was NOT to get up and watch tv, but stay in bed. Ok sure mom, no problem.

I missed 3 days and on day 3 the school called (we didn't have any requirement that you had to have a parent call you out sick) to find out where I was. I guess 3 days was the trigger. But they told me I sounded so awful they knew I wasn't faking it!

Well, speaking as someone who has co-workers as FB friends, who frequently post on FB during working hours on NON-sick days.. yeah, I don't see a problem with it. I think most people generally understand that just because someone is sick, it doesn't mean that they are confined to bed with the lights out and no activity all day long.

Now, posting a picture of the fish you caught that morning.. probably not a great idea.

Yeah, I don't see the connection and why it's "wrong." Granted, if you called in sick and are out enjoying the day shopping, then that's wrong but if it's personal time off then your day is your day to do with what you want.

You should always be smart about what you post on FB, regardless of whether or not you called in sick to work.

I don't think it's wrong. I can think of lots of scenarios where you (general) might be well enough to use FB or twitter but not be fit for work. (In fact, last time I was off sick I spent some of the time updating our office's FB page and blog, as that was something i could do remotely, didn't require to much mental energy and was not critical if I got it wrong!

There's a difference between "too sick to go to work" and "too sick to sit up and do anything". It probably takes less mental strength to Facebook than to read a book, or watch television.

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My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."